Conducting polymers have electronic properties of inorganic semiconductor and engineering properties of plastic, and are being explored for variety of opto-electronic applications including light emitting diodes, solar cells, sensors, transistors, anti-corrosion, electromagnetic shielding, data storage and many others. Among the various conducting polymers studied, polythiophenes and polyanilines are the most promising for many industrial applications.
Polythiophene has demonstrated a large number of unique physical properties, such as, thermochromism, electrochromism, solvatochromism, luminescence, and photoconductivity. Polyaniline has exceptional properties such as reversible protonic dupability, excellent redox re-cyclability, and chemical stability. It is desirable to strategically combine the properties of polyaniline and polythiophene by making a copolymer with both aniline and thiophene segments along the polymer backbone. However, their generic insolubility in common organic solvents has practically limited this approach.